7: British Politician Mark Field – Can the UK Economy be Saved?

Cathy (00:10)

I’d like to welcome Mark Field, who’s a businessman, an author and a commentator and also a former MP. And he has written this book, The End of an Era, the decline.

Mark (00:22)

The end of an era, yeah.

Cathy (00:25)

Yes, the decline and fall of the Tory party, although, you know, maybe the demise of the Tories is a little bit premature as reforms seem to be completely imploding at the moment. maybe while their stock is low at the moment, they may have another turn. So even if it means it’s the least worst option, which…

Mark (00:50)

Well, listen, it’s very

interesting. It’s often the way, as you know, when people write books, you spend a lot of time preparing, and it’s 125,000 words. I gave about a year’s worth of time thinking about the structure of the book, and then actually was able to write it much more quickly than I thought I would. But the title only really came at the 11th hour. So you never quite know whether it sort of fits with the mood of the times.

unusual times in British politics and very unpredictable times and we’ve had a duopoly really for the last 100 years of the Conservative and the Labour Party as the two big parties and I am old enough to remember the early 1980s when the STP came into being and they…

briefly sawed and then fell away and I think everyone has taken for granted the idea well it’s going to be difficult to have a disruptor party and maybe reform won’t be that disruptor party it could be that the Liberal Democrats and I think one of the things that you’ve touched on that everyone sort of assumes that if the Tories are down it’ll be reform up or vice versa. The last general election although the Conservatives did lose seats to reform we also lost dozens of seats over six

to the Liberal Democrats and they are making continued headway at a local government level in particularly in the home counties as well as in some of their heartlands of the southwest so it’s a fascinating time in British politics but dare I say a difficult time for the country as a whole and in many ways you know it’s very difficult to see how we get out of the hole we’re in economically whoever is in government.

Cathy (02:28)

Well, yes, that’s very true. But we can come back to that in a bit. Before we go into it, would you mind just starting by just giving a little bit of background on yourself your family, your home life, et cetera? because I think it was very interesting. You mentioned when you were very young, there was an incident in Tesco’s which sort of started your

whole thinking about a political career. Do you want to just go into that a bit?

Mark (02:53)

Yeah, indeed. think we all have our

background. I had a very, I would guess, one level quite standard, middle class British background. I’m a grammar school boy who went to university, went up to Oxford in the mid 1980s and met some interesting folk there, many of whom became prominent in public life and in journalism. I suppose what sounds slightly unusual in my background was my mother was German. She was from a part of Germany that is now in Poland. So she was born in

beginning of the war and was one of these roughly 11 million Germans who were ethnically cleansed, it wasn’t a phrase that was used at that time, from the east to the west. She ended up having been a refugee twice by the age of 15, meeting my father in West Germany where he was serving in the British Army. So politics was always sort of in my mind, I’m talking about my mother’s background as I was growing up, so it was always something that I had an interest in and I guess it was instilled in me, although my parents were not political themselves, but that politics was too important.

to

be left to someone else. And as you rightly say, there was a particular incident in my sort of mid-teens. Reading was my hometown and I was in the Butts Centre, which has long since been replaced. was a very sort of brutalist early 1970s shopping centre that briefly towered above things in the centre of Reading. And I was in the local Tesco’s and there was an elderly man there and you know quite well to do but

he was literally crying looking at the few pennies in his hand. It was at the time of in the sort of period 1976-77 I guess when inflation was at 25-26 % and many people were living at that time, I assumed he was in that boat, on fixed incomes. So suddenly higher prices were really making a massive impact on their day-to-day life and I remember with some shock watching this

Cathy (04:40)

Yes.

Mark (04:48)

and it was that whole inflationary period. And it has always stuck in my mind. And I think the thing about inflation is that it’s so corrosive to trust, trust in any institutions and trust in money, trust in government. And one of the reasons I was very much in favor of what Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt were doing, although it was all in vain as far as ⁓ the Conservatives’ political prospects were concerned, when inflation began to peak up a little bit in the aftermath of the pandemic.

One of the first things they did was make sure they do everything to get that inflation down. It had an impact obviously on day-to-day living standards but very quickly to get inflation at a low level.

That was a big thing for people who were growing up in the 1970s. It was a major political force and one of the things that Margaret Thatcher in opposition talked about, she very much positioned herself as the housewife looking after the day-to-day spending and why we needed to get inflation down. And it was something that always very much appealed to me and I think in the broader economic sense, as I say, the idea of highly rising prices and of course it impacted to an extent on my

grandparents in Germany with the runaway inflation of the 1920s and it is a very deeply held idea that inflation and high inflation is a bad thing not just for the economy but for trust in politics and in the whole political process.

Cathy (06:16)

Yeah, no, absolutely. ⁓ I grew up in Africa and obviously hyperinflation was a real problem in places like Zimbabwe. you know, there was a joke that if you found a ⁓ wheelbarrow full of money, you’d chuck the money away and steal the wheelbarrow. So, you’re absolutely right that it does erode trust. And also there’s a, there seems to be a total disconnect between the way that the political class

Mark (06:31)

Yeah.

Cathy (06:42)

⁓ run their own household affairs and the way that they run the country. there’s a disconnect between, you know, political accountability and there’s not enough skin in the game, as, Nassim Taleb would put it. You know, people are making these vast, risky decisions and they don’t seem to have any proper fallout for it, personally. And it’s the country and the taxpayer that actually end up suffering for it.

Mark (07:08)

Well think one of the big themes of the book, a general theme, it’s a memoir but it’s a little bit more, it’s about my life and times. I’ve just turned 60 and I’m just a baby boomer. was born in October 1964. And it’s reflecting really on that whole sense that my generation, our generation of people who are the baby boomers have had a good life. We haven’t had to go to war, we’ve grown up in a time of peace and of course we reflect on…

happening in Ukraine or the Middle East and reflect that maybe that we have taken that for granted. But other things such as, I I would say I was one of first of my family to go to university at a time when I came out of university without any debt. And right at the end of that period when you didn’t have large debts and we relied on grants rather than…

loans as university students. I got on the housing ladder in the late 1980s at a time, fun enough, when it didn’t seem all rosy.

Mark (08:08)

I was able to buy a flat as soon as I left university in 1988. And it wasn’t all rosy for all of us at that point, of course. The property market had jolted up in the previous few years, and then there was the high interest rates and negative equity and all that. It was expensive for the early years of my adult life.

Cathy (08:23)

⁓ So servicing the debt was expensive, wasn’t it?

Mark (08:29)

and being on the housing ladder, I was luckily to be in employment and it didn’t particularly impact on me, but I touch on that in my book. sort of go through some of the journey I went on. But I look at it now and it’s funny enough, I’ve got a 17 year old son and a 14 year old daughter and my son is already fairly savvy about these things. He daddy, how am I ever going to get onto the housing ladder? There’s a worry about that. And the multiples of salary, which…

Of course, when interest rates were very low, as they were very artificially between 2009 and 2022, everyone thought, we can manage that. But suddenly with interest rates going up, actually to not especially high levels, at four and a quarter percent today, it’s not that high by historic standards, but it seems to be and make life very difficult for youngsters, particularly trying to get multiples of their income to get onto the housing ladder. And so, you know, the life that I think many people of my generation have

is one that is very difficult to replicate for the next generation and I think you know outside of wartime that is almost unique.

Cathy (09:32)

Yes, that’s true. And it’s made even worse now with the Heiken Ni insurance because now it’s much more for firms to hire young people and an awful lot of them are are NEETs, you know, not in education or employment. And this is just a tragedy for, opportunity. it just seems to go from bad to worse all the time. And it would be really nice to have a little bit of, good news on the horizon.

Mark (09:59)

Well, I think the other thing is, again, I was part of a generation not that long ago, but I graduated, well, it is almost 40 years ago now. And I think I was one of sort of 14%, roughly one in seven of my cohort went to university. Now it’s around about 40%. So you’ve got this large number of graduates, but the economy has not developed in such a way that it is sucking up as many graduates as required.

Cathy (10:22)

And in fact, a lot of those graduates

should be doing technical training or they should be doing apprenticeships and they should be skilling up for the jobs that we are desperately short of actually you describe it very well in your book that a lot of the degrees are miss sold. And, the university sector is relying so much on foreign students.

and that is a Ponzi scheme that has to come to an end at some point.

Mark (10:47)

I think as you say that whole issue as you put it Ponzi scheme applies to so many aspects of British life and say the university sector has become an over relied on foreign students as you say we we’re now having an hostile relationship with China so how many more Chinese students will come we’re clamping down on the numbers of ⁓ family people coming in and I understand that but equally it makes a question mark about the number of Indian students coming all the issues around you know the financial

Cathy (10:54)

It does.

Let’s just…

Mark (11:18)

whereas with all of countries such as Nigeria, mean that again there are fewer students. And the other thing is I say in the book is that one thing that’s very evident to me is that you know the big USP that many British universities have is the English language and now that is almost universal. I mean it’s one of the things that has been changed so rapidly in my adult life that whereas as I say 30 years ago

Cathy (11:33)

Yes, it is, yes.

Mark (11:44)

having English language was a rarity. Now if you want to be in the ruling class or the professional classes globally you’ve got to have English. ⁓ It struck me particularly when I was a…

Cathy (11:54)

Absolutely. You do make

an interesting point in the book that the Chinese elite tend to vote with their feet though and they they send money offshore and they also still send their kids to UK.

Mark (12:07)

Well, and it is fascinating.

at one level again, we’ve seen it with DeepSeek, the big AI outfit out of China that has gone from nowhere apparently to being a global leader. You see it actually with some of the Chinese universities. And I think that the next generation of Chinese aren’t necessarily going to be going, or in such large numbers, going to the US or to the UK to university education there. There some very, very good homegrown universities. But it is interesting.

that the Chinese elite have over recent years, particularly with the one child policy, they’ve tended to invest all their into their son or daughter to go to a US university to go and join a leading US bank or UK finance house or law firm.

partly, I guess, in their hearts there’s a recognition that there is a level of uncertainty that applies. And if you see the rise of President Xi, I mean, he’s got an interesting life of his own. I believe there’s a biography, actually, of his father who’s come out. he is one of what’s called the princelings. His father was a leading communist member, and then with Maoist revolution, suddenly it was sort of persona non grata, and it made for a difficult life actually for Xi in his early

early

adulthood as well. But there’s always that sense of uncertainty and perhaps here in the UK and in much of Europe there is still an establishment sense that if you have…

tick the boxes and with your educational background and your professional background, life is going to be fairly comfortable for you, at least fairly predictable. mean maybe that can’t be taken for granted either. I have to say I left university, I became a lawyer and I look upon how difficult it is now to get into the top professions in a way that…

Cathy (13:44)

Yes.

Mark (13:55)

40 years ago as a graduate from somewhere like Oxford, you sailed into those sorts of jobs. It may not necessarily have been a career you wanted to have for life, certainly I didn’t, but nonetheless that first step was relatively straightforward, but even getting that far now I think is much more difficult for the younger generation and that will have an impact I think on both.

risk is that it’s quite a brain drain from this country but also I think for many young people who feel that the social contract just isn’t working out for them in a way that it was for our generation.

Cathy (14:26)

Yeah.

But then on the other hand, there are so many different ways of obtaining skills and education. You don’t need to go to university. you can do online courses and there’s so many different ways of breaking into professions. And I think there is an opportunity for young people if they, if they step off the sort of accepted path

Mark (14:47)

it’s fascinating. With teenage children, this is very much in the forefront of one’s mind and at one level, of course, not least because of my own experience. I think my wife and I both feel that, yes, we’d like our children to go to university. But if they turned around and said, actually, here’s a plan B, I’m not sure that it’s necessarily the wrong option for either of time will tell. But you’re right. I think that

youngsters today I think are far more savvy, they’re far more able to think beyond doing a standard related degree and particularly those who are entrepreneurial. may well be that actually they get some pretty bad habits actually in three or four years at university rather than necessarily following a path that might be not just more lucrative but actually might lead to much more exciting possibilities for them their longer term.

Cathy (15:24)

Yes.

Well, exactly, especially as AI has shown us that the world can just change on a dime. And actually, there’s so many ⁓ jobs just around the future that we can’t even imagine at the moment. I just think it’s so important to have different skills and to link them all together. In fact, I’ve just read Charlie Munger’s book, you know, Poor Charlie’s Almanac, which I really,

recommend and in fact it should be essential reading for anyone in government because he talks about the importance of having a lattice work of knowledge you know you shouldn’t just learn one subject you should learn how all the subjects link together

And the other thing he does is he advises everyone to invert, always invert. So if you’re thinking about a policy, instead of thinking about how marvelous it is and how wonderful, you should think immediately what could possibly go wrong. know? ⁓ Yes. I mean…

Mark (16:34)

quite a lot I guess. no, well funnily enough one of the things

I always say to my children is actually that some of those soft skills will matter.

more because they’re there for life. as you say, education has got to be an ongoing process. Keep on reading, keep on learning and recognise that you may have to go through a set of careers. Certainly, mean, the notion of a job for life has gone. But actually, as you say, it’s that broader skill base that has to come into play. you see, even in the profession, so much has become and is becoming commoditised. And you’ve touched on the impact of AI.

It’s unpredictable as to how AI plays out. Is it a force for good, a force for concern? But whichever way you look at it, it means you can’t take for granted that the skill base that you develop today is going to necessarily be something that will be at the forefront of things in the decades time, yet alone in 30 years time.

Cathy (17:28)

That’s all.

Yeah, I just think the best thing we can do is embrace AI and learn how to use it to our advantage. But there are some really worrying things, like for example, matters, appropriation of books, without permission to teach the large language learning models It’s really worrying, the sort of loss of copyright and privacy as well. think the implications of it just…

aren’t, it’s going to take ages for that to play out. So.

Mark (18:04)

Yeah,

the idea that you can legislate for this, either you can do or that there is a single model. And I think again, this is one of the issues that we face in the geopolitical world is, perhaps again, we in the West have taken for granted that our model is the right model and everyone else will just have to follow it. And it’s one of the themes again of my book is that the…

sense of exceptionalism we have in the UK is partly because of the institutional infrastructure that has been put into place since 1945. But the world has changed a lot in the last 80 years and you look at the rise of China, the rise of India.

happening even today with much greater pace really in the Middle East and you know we have a sense of these are our values, the rules-based international system. You’ve touched on the concerns about AI, about copyright. Copyright works well for the Western values, actually worked well, dare I say, for a relatively diminished demography.

Is that necessarily something that works well for nations? Maybe not. And perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that they want to set up a commercial model that doesn’t see copyright at its very, heart. you know, I’m not being glib about it. And I do recognize that if you’re a musician or you’re in the creative industries, it’s a hell of a shock to think that all of your creative genius is going to be essentially diminished to having no value.

at all. I think we have to recognise in the West that a system that we have put into place that benefits us isn’t one necessarily that is going to ⁓ rolled out globally in the decades to come.

Cathy (19:49)

No, not at all. And in fact,

you touch on it very well in your book that, you know, the imposition of Western values actually, like LGBT or women’s rights or anything like that can actually be seen as ⁓ neocolonialism. And this is very uncomfortable and it it forces people to reassess, and you put it very well in your book that actually the protection of minorities in places like Afghanistan

for example, are actually best served by dynastic dictators and that is horrible for a Western person to contemplate but it is true. know, again, ⁓ touching on my own African background, you know, the way that government works over there is very different to, ⁓ and you know, the protection of minorities is super important otherwise you get disasters like Rwanda,

I know Rwanda’s changed an awful lot in the last 20 odd years, but it’s a really thorny issue and ⁓ interventionism isn’t always the answer.

Mark (20:53)

No,

this came to my mind at a very early stage, well before the Arab Spring, but in a trip I made 22 years ago to Syria. And I met the young President Assad, Bashar Assad, had taken over from his father only two or three years before then. He had great plans about, he’s a very softly spoken man, very much at odds with the murderous dictator that he ended up becoming. Yeah.

Cathy (21:18)

He’s an ophthalmologist, he? He was trained

to be an eye doctor.

Mark (21:22)

No, exactly.

And of course, really, he thought he was going to have medical career. And was his older brother who was killed in a car crash. And suddenly, he was thrown into the main seat and then took over from his father. And no, no, he had great plans about actually technology and other things. But ultimately, broad security infrastructure of his father’s regime was kept very much in place. But it was a conversation I had when we went down literally 45 minutes from Damascus to an ancient.

Christian community, which had obviously been Christian since the time of Paul in Damascus in the century after Christ’s death. he was talking to a pastor there who made that case to say, listen, know…

talk about the importance of democracy but in many countries unfortunately democracy becomes the tyranny of the majority, the tyranny of the 51 % making the other life miserable for the rest and the Christian minority felt its interests in not just in Syria but in countries like Iraq and Egypt was actually better protected by a dynastic dictatorship and unfortunately one only needs to look at the diminution in numbers over the last 20 years of not just Christian but other

Cathy (22:15)

It does, yeah.

Mark (22:38)

minorities

in those countries and it suggests that this headlong rush towards the Arab Spring and democracy flourishing hasn’t actually worked well for many ordinary people in many of those countries.

Cathy (22:50)

No, really hasn’t. And in fact, well, the persecution of Christians is a whole new issue. I’ve been, wondering why the Church of England will never stand up for it. You know, they never make any sort of pronouncement on it and it drives me insane. But anyway, we’re really getting off topic. going back to your university days, you were actually at uni at Oxford with a lot of the really big beasts of politics and, you know, Boris Johnson.

⁓ you obviously Keir Starmer as well it’s really interesting that you out Nick Robinson is an early Tory in your book I’m sure he’s never gonna forgive you for that

Mark (23:21)

Yeah.

I don’t think I’m putting it out in him. No,

it was funny. It was a very political generation, and I’m sure like every generation of student politicians, probably most of the fellow students are like, who are these bloody people? What do they know what’s going on? And suddenly…

tended to be were a very political generation and so say Boris was the year above me I mean people like Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt the year below actually David Cameron was the year below but wasn’t really involved in student politics the way the rest of us were. David Miliband I knew very well he was my year when we were both junior common room presidents of our respective colleges but as you rightly say the other person was Keir Starmer who was at my college and he was a postgraduate in law.

doing the Bachelor of Civil Law when I was an undergraduate. So I did get to know him a little bit and we did a little bit when I was JCR president, we came across some politics and of course we ended up 30 years on being MPs in neighbouring constituencies. And the one thing I do say in the book, and I didn’t know Keir that well, but…

So it did come across him during his one year, he was a one year pretty, pretty hard, as nails, postgraduate degree that he was doing. But his style was even then a suspicion he was kind of more left wing than meets the eye. But his style, as much as it is now, he was very, he was always well dressed, for example, and a lot of students, even at that time, wouldn’t necessarily have been particularly those who were politically active. And there was never any great tub thumping style

and he was very measured in his depression.

Cathy (24:58)

Well, he’s more studious

and thoughtful, isn’t he? He’s a sort of quiet…

Mark (25:01)

He is and

yeah and as I say in the book I mean he would be wrong to underestimate him I it has surprised me. Yeah.

Cathy (25:11)

Well, I mean, he’s the Prime Minister, so… But,

on the other hand, he’s really floundering at the moment. He’s not having a good war, is he? He’s… Well, I’m just… What advice would you give Keir Starmer right now?

Mark (25:17)

Yeah, and that has surprised me. Yeah, just sorry.

I don’t think anyone needs my advice particularly.

think, listen, things are very, very difficult on the economy, there’s no doubt about that. And I think it’s difficult to see how things get turned around all that quickly. And I think the problem, partly that Labour faced, was having suddenly gone from some zero to hero, know, from…

when it looked as though only four years ago everyone was talking about the idea of 2020s being the Boris Johnson decade, the aftermath of the pandemic when essentially politics went into sort of almost deep freeze and there was for over a year and a half or so the Tory…

vote share remained very high, there was a sense that obviously huge amounts of money were pumped into keeping the economy going and then suddenly ⁓ the impact of that economically came into play and then all the shenanigans around Partygate and the brief interlude with Elizabeth Trusts and then obviously…

which he soon had tried to pick up the pieces. So Labour came into office and I think there was a perception that the country was just going to be grateful to see the back of those Tories and the reality was very quickly there were expectations. Well, know, what are you going to achieve? And I think part of the difficulty was when he talked about change, really all he’s offered to date has been continuity really.

Cathy (26:49)

But it hasn’t

been, in fact, he’s made things worse. Okay, so, yes.

Mark (26:52)

Well, yes, but there hasn’t been the fundamental change. You

make things worse by, well, we’ll pay off those unions here. We’ll find money for this, that, and the other.

Cathy (27:03)

really ratcheting up potential inflation and doing so by ratcheting up the public debt, you know, which is worrying, is eye-wateringly huge enough as it is and now he’s increased the union power. He’s, by increasing NI, he’s made it really difficult to hire people. He’s made it. So just as a personal example, I was going to hire my intern to InkSpot Publishing.

and I couldn’t afford to do it. was just ⁓ no way I couldn’t do it. now I have to, so I have absolutely, but I mean, it does have a…

Mark (27:35)

That’s disappointing for you, it’s disappointing for you building a trust with a young intern who wants to get

on that ladder.

Cathy (27:42)

The story has a happy ending. I helped her find another job. She’s now working for an academic publisher and she’s doing very well. But she was a graduate and she was really talented and she just wanted to earn enough money to leave home, which is fair enough, and the NI hike made that really impossible for me to hire her, whereas I was, on the verge of doing so beforehand. So, and it just would have been irresponsible to take her on,

I’m running my business as I wish the political class around the country, you make tough decisions she’s got herself a lovely job at an, but it’s a…

Mark (28:09)

the country could be run. ⁓

Cathy (28:21)

It is really difficult to imagine how, I mean, they haven’t seen, they haven’t done anything positive. and I cannot understand for the life of me why you get in on a huge majority. Everyone’s delighted to see the back of the Tories. And the first thing you do is take away the winter fuel allowance for old people. Why would you do that? It’s just the most, deranged policy imaginable. And now.

Mark (28:46)

Well, I mean,

in the scheme of things, it doesn’t make a lot of difference money wise. I think that the trouble really was, again, there was a sort of sense, I think, in which Stalman Reeves wanted to almost replicate what Blair and Brown had done in the run-up to 1997. And of course, the economic situation was entirely different. But they wanted to go into it and say, we don’t want to scare the horses. So we’re not going to raise income tax. We’re not going to raise VAT. We’re not going to raise national insurance for employees, at least.

Cathy (29:05)

Very different, yeah.

Mark (29:16)

was, once you do that, you’re putting a massive straight jacket on in terms of what you can do. I remember did think this, you may recall in 97, Brown then changed pension rules, there was a sort 5 billion.

Cathy (29:32)

I remember

very well

Mark (29:34)

much of that was done partly because A, he needed to find a pocket of money to do something with, but also everyone thought, oh well, pension, that’ll take years before that actually has an impact. And one of the things that’s also happened at the moment, and people say, well,

should pay more more taxes, they’re actually paying higher levels of tax, of income tax, the richest 1 % than has ever been the case in the past. But you know the changes on the non-dom actually began a little bit even in the conservative time. But in doing that there are significant numbers of people who are ⁓ mobile who will say right in that case you know the uncertainty about tax we’re going to go ⁓ and partly because the

going to change to such an extent that almost if you stay in this country you have a situation similar to American citizens. You have to pay global tax on all of your income and on your inheritance and for some they’ve just taken the view we will move on and of course that has only accelerated the level of deficit that we’ve now got into the economy. The trouble really is we’ve been living beyond our means for far too long and very low interest rates and I’m afraid that was I think one of the

Cathy (30:43)

Yes.

Mark (30:46)

biggest bug bears about the conservative time, particularly I’m afraid in the Cameron Osborne era when for many, many years we just kept essentially a zero interest rate regime going or interest rates did not go above 1 % between March of 2009 and the middle of 2022. And because for that period of time it went on for so long.

Cathy (31:08)

But in theory, that

decision should have been the Bank of England, shouldn’t it? Brown had given the Bank of England.

Mark (31:12)

Well, we had in Mr. Mark Carney, a Bank of England

governor who was, as we know, much more political than the average. And that, I’m sure, was one of the reasons he was taken on by Osborne. I did say so at the time and got quite a bit of flak, I remember, in the financial pages. you know, because I was the city’s MP at the time, so my voice can’t for a little bit anyway. But that was my concern, that interest rates have distorted so much risk. And, of course,

Cathy (31:32)

Yes.

Mark (31:39)

We’ve gone from a situation before the financial crisis in 2008 of having around about 700 million of debt to about three trillion. we’re seeing it in the amount of interest we’re paying on our debt is now bigger than much bigger than the defence budget. That’s not a healthy state of affairs to be in.

Cathy (31:50)

it’s terrifying.

Isn’t it $273

million a day? Something like that.

Mark (32:04)

Yes, I think that’s right. It’s over hundred billion a year that we’re paying just in debt interest. So we’re living beyond our means and it’s awful thing. ⁓

Cathy (32:11)

Yeah.

The thing is that…

Just going back to your former comments about what Gordon Brown did, what he specifically did in 97 was abolish the dividend tax credit for pension funds, Britain had such a brilliant defined benefit pension scheme that so many companies had really generous pension funds for their employees. And after that action, they are pretty much en masse and it happened slowly over time.

all move from defined benefit to defined contribution, which meant that the risk shifted from the employer to the individual, which is so the private sector pensions were effectively decimated as a result, whereas government sector pensions remain defined benefit. And that is another Ponzi scheme because it is constantly paid for by taxpayers. And

there’s only one line about it in your book I’m guessing that this is such an intractable problem. It’s one of the ones that you mentioned that, so many government, department budgets have to go on pension funds and this is not fully disclosed to the public and the public does not understand it.

Mark (33:29)

I’m sorry I didn’t mention in any great detail, I didn’t want this to be too dry a book about pension. And that’s the problem actually, because it’s seen as a dry and esoteric thing. mean, listen, I’m also, mean, to full disclosure, of course, I transferred the pot I’d built up when I was a businessman.

Cathy (33:32)

No, no, no, maybe you thought quite rightly. It’s just too…

Mark (33:50)

to buy years in the parliamentary scheme. So I’m afraid it was probably the best economic decision. Although, to be honest, because I qualify for that at age of 65, in fairness, throughout my time as an MP, I paid 13 % contribution of years, a fairly substantial contribution to get the maximum parliamentary pension scheme. But I have taken the view that in the back of my mind,

Cathy (33:52)

And why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you? You’d be foolish not to.

Mark (34:17)

that I’m going have to take a haircut on that. listen, in all honesty, I suspect I probably will not have to take a haircut. I will get to that pension age, and it is only four and half years away now, ⁓ before fundamental change has to happen. But at some point, as you say, the disconnect between public and private sector pensions is going to cause literally riots in the streets. And at some point, probably government will have to say, right, this is…

Cathy (34:38)

It is, yes, absolutely right. ⁓

Mark (34:45)

what we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to have a haircut of 20-25 % on public pensions.

Cathy (34:49)

But isn’t it the case?

Isn’t it the case, and forgive me, I haven’t researched this point in detail, it’s just from memory, isn’t it the case that the coalition tried to do something about this and they tried to enroll new government employees defined contribution schemes, which seems the fairest way of doing it. You put a cap on who, okay, you can’t change the arrangement you have with people now, so those who qualify get it, but in future you can have a cut

point where people have defined contribution. And in fact, Holland has done this very well. They’ve pretty much shifted all government employees to, well, they have a very different system for a start, but they have not only shifted most people to define contribution, but also they have pension dashboards. So whatever age you are, you can actually log in and see what your entitlements are, whether you need to top your fund up, at what age you should retire.

and the effect on your pension if you make on the decisions that you make and those people who were enrolled after the coalition made this decision as a class action took the government to court and won so why is the judiciary never on the side of the taxpayer

Mark (36:08)

Well, ⁓ as you say, nothing should be set in stone. the other thing, of course, you could say is, well, if people realised just how much in equivalent of salary…

you could be saying to someone, actually, okay, in order to get that reduced pension benefit, you need to be raising salaries by 30 % or reducing the salaries of those who are getting a defined benefit scheme ⁓ benefit by an equivalent amount. that… ⁓

essentially was part of the problem. I guess it was probably equality legislation that they were able to rely upon to say, you know, we are doing the same job for the same money, or we should be. And if you unilaterally change our terms in this way, then that’s what undermines it. as you say, what it means is that there’s still a sense that the public sector is cosseted. And of course, most people in the private sector don’t quite understand how that’s going to play out. And dare I say it, when everyone gets to their 60s and

Cathy (36:47)

That’s the thing, yeah.

Mark (37:10)

If you’ve been working in a private sector and you’re holidaying with lot of your friends who are in the civil service or ⁓ working in NHS trusts or whatever and suddenly see the difference, then ⁓ all sorts of irritation will emerge.

Cathy (37:26)

Yeah, make them buy the sangria. That’s really the only thing you can do. So yeah.

Mark (37:29)

you

any

alcohol at all by that stage. Yes. I mean this is part of the trouble here. We are in a very British way. We’re laughing it off and making a joke out of all of it. But it’s serious and it’s serious for the next generation. And as I I look at my motivated, educated, young teenage children and I wonder maybe they will conclude that they don’t want to be paying into this Ponzi scheme anymore and you know… ⁓

Cathy (37:36)

you

Yes.

Mark (38:01)

vote with their feet and leave this country and then that’s the risk. That brain drain which we, I grew up in the 70s and early 80s and everyone was talking about that and then that seemed to disappear for some decades but I think that whole conversation has become a lot more active in recent times.

Cathy (38:04)

Absolutely, yes. Although, not that it’s…

Well, actually, one of the things you said in your book, which I thought was really interesting, is that it’s politics dirty little secret that there are some problems that are so intractable that actually they don’t get solved and the can gets kicked down the road. And we know this. So social care in this country, obviously pensions, but pensions and social care are very linked as are

prices and house building and you know and productivity these are these are such huge problems that successive governments of all of both parties and including the coalition so that does drag the Lib Dems in as well have failed to deal with these issues

So, we’ll get to Britain’s global standing and Brexit and all that sort of stuff in a bit. a lot of us just want our governments to focus on what’s broken at home before we worry about what goes on abroad. and obviously you can’t ignore foreign policy because you’ve got Putin running around and you’ve got, you know, was at Harold McMillan events, dear boy, events, you know, that’s… ⁓

Mark (39:27)

Yeah, the

famous phrase, yes, yeah. Well, as I say, you’re very counter-reversed, read the book, but it is a dirty little secret and people often complain.

MPs have become super councillors, spending a lot of time on local business, but actually, as you say, so many of the bigger economic problems nationally as well as the international problems seem so intractable. The view is, well, we can get on, do our stuff at a local level, be a hard-working, consistent local MP, work on the day-to-day problems of our constituents. ⁓

Cathy (40:07)

And I can really understand

why that is so attractive because ⁓ you actually get results. ⁓ But also, I suppose if you’re power hungry and you feel the hand of history and you have some sort of sense of personal destiny, you’re going to ignore your constituents and focus on how to become PM. Whereas, if you’re unburdened by those things, which you make it very clear that you were, constituency work is actually quite

Mark (40:10)

Yeah, I can too, don’t know. Yeah.

Cathy (40:36)

attractive and I can really see how making a difference to someone where you see the whites of their eyes is really amazing but I just wondered and you touch on it that you actually had quite a lot of cross-party cooperation with people like Frank Dobson and Karen Buck

Don’t you think that some problems are just too big for one party to solve and we have to be grown up about it and instead of worrying about PMQs and voter numbers, know, the parties have to work together to fix these problems and is it ever likely to happen?

Mark (41:11)

You’re absolutely right, I used to loathe the whole PMQs business and quite a lot of MPs didn’t ⁓ enjoy it. Part of politics is performative, we’re living in that world of TV and communication so one can’t deny that there’s an aspect of it that can’t go away. The difficulty is, to be candid with you, that if for example we try to…

Cathy (41:20)

It’s totally performative. don’t think…

Mark (41:40)

have a policy on social care or something and if you bring it up as Theresa May did in 2017 in the midst of an election campaign it wasn’t surprising that you were going to see more heat than light and there wasn’t going to be a chance of bringing the parties together.

But also, I mean, there are certain things, I mean, as a conservative, conservatives have tended to take a view, well, you know, we can be trusted with the defense of the realm, and therefore there’s always an accusation that somehow labor are not being patriotic, and I think Stammer has been well aware of that, and has pushed, you know, particularly after the Corbyn interlude. On the other hand, you there is a sense of the NHS is only safe in labor’s hands, and in every general election, it’s 24 hours to save the NHS is the labor line against the conservatives. But as you say, these are all areas, mean, defense now,

in but future funding of the health service, of social care, where you do need not just to have a level of compromise ⁓ and agreement, although a little bit of ⁓ disagreement is also a healthy thing in the political process, you don’t want too much of a sense of the political class make their decision and the rest of the people will have to put up with it. But on the one hand, you do need to try to…

and impress ⁓ that upon people at large. But it is also fairly difficult to do that other than saying this is going to be over a long, long period of time. Because actually the worst of all things is to have a stop-start situation where you start going down one route. But one of the things that I say in the book is that again we had a coalition government and we always rather…

with the hindsight particularly because of Brexit that happened in the aftermath of that coalition. We lionized those five years of conservative and liberal and Cameron and Clegg. But if you think about it, you know…

ultimately going into a coalition actually, ironically, made us further away from getting the compromise. We knew what the challenges were in 2010. The challenges were how do we get the social care? How do we make sure that we keep the lights on and have an energy policy that works and not to be overly reliant upon Russian gas, et cetera, et cetera? How do we make sure that we ⁓ focus our energies on getting an education system that works? How do we… ⁓

Cathy (43:43)

Yeah.

Mark (44:03)

from the intergenerational conflict there. And in many ways, all that happened in 2010, these were just seen as two difficult problems. Oh, let’s get an independent commission. Let’s kick the can a little bit further down the road. And so what were challenges in 2010, by 2025, are fully flown crises.

Cathy (44:13)

⁓

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Actually, now you’ve talked about the coalition and David Cameron, that’s probably a good time to talk about one of the other overriding themes in the book is Brexit. And you were a very ardent Remainer. And funny enough, Jeremy Hunt has described himself as a born again Brexiteer. ⁓

under what circumstances would you be a born-again Brexiteer?

Mark (44:49)

Yeah, mean, listen, Jeremy is still a player. I’m now just a commentator. So he’s a very old friend. As you’ll gather, he’s godfather to my daughter. And when we knew each other from our university days well, so we’ve been friends for 40 years. And so he still, you know, he recognizes where the center of gravity is in the conservative party. And, you know, I would say probably he…

Cathy (44:58)

Yes.

not just the party,

think, the voters too. think there’s…

Mark (45:14)

Well, I think

the voters now are much, much more sceptical about ⁓ the benefits of Brexit or at least the way in which Brexit was carried out.

Cathy (45:20)

Well, they have because

we because a lot of them feel that that what they voted for has actually been betrayed. You know, it’s been given away, betrayed, poorly negotiated. The EU totally outmaneuvered us in the negotiation package. And a lot of these things we we they were just not for not necessarily foreseeable for example, I think Cameron wasted a real opportunity. when he went to

the EU and asked for concessions and they refused it, he probably should have remained neutral. He should have, he and George Osborne should have probably said, okay, we’re going to offer you the referendum and even you in your book as an ardent remainer said that the referendum had to happen at some point or another. And so

If they’d given, if they’d said we’ll give free and fair information to both sides and then the day after the referendum, I, David Cameron, will still be PM and George Osborne will still be Chancellor, ⁓ it wouldn’t have had to be so divisive because David Cameron actually, by fleeing the scene the day after, it was just seen as such a huge abnegation of responsibility. And also there was seen that there was no plan.

There was no plan for the event that Leave would win.

Mark (46:35)

Well, I

do go into some detail in the book. Obviously, I lived through that, and in many ways it reflected the beginning of the end of my time in parliament, but also, I’m afraid, the beginning of the end of the credibility of the Conservative Party as well. ironically, we remained in government for further eight years after the referendum through five prime ministers and all the shenanigans that went on, which normally would have happened in opposition.

Cathy (46:41)

Yes.

Yes.

but actually

largely because Labour were so inept during that time and

Mark (47:04)

Well, yeah, I

think that’s right. But part of the difficulty, I I felt that we did need to have a referendum.

⁓ And the promise had been made from Blair’s time about the Lisbon agreement at various times when we were going to have a referendum. Even the Liberal Democrats had talked, and one forgets, in the noughties about the idea we now need have a referendum on this matter. We had talked about having a referendum over the single currency. So this was going to come to a head. It needed to go back to the people as it had done in 1975. My preference was always actually just very, we need to an in-out referendum promise. The thing that Cameron and why

was so difficult and I have some sympathy for Cameron’s situation in the aftermath. I mean he’d lost the Well he put a package together which wasn’t all bad. mean again I was in a very multicultural

Cathy (47:47)

No, you are very fair about it, I think. You’re very fair,

Mark (47:59)

constituency, even when I was elected in 2001, over half of my constituents, like me for example, were born outside the UK. So the issues around immigration, I didn’t see, didn’t realise just how profound they were beyond the M25, within bits of London, but certainly outside of London they were much bigger. And in fairness, Cameron I think had a very good package that protected our interests as a nation that was not going

to join the single currency and actually, mean, of course none of that came into play, but I think that had we remained in the EU, that would have been a very useful package. But given that he’d put this package forward, he’d negotiated from the front, it was very difficult, it was impossible for him to stay. in a way, it was even more serious than a conference, though, would have been in parliament. So the notion that he could have stayed, I think, was never there. The trouble really with, going back to your Jeremy Hunt comment about, listen, the Brexit, even I could,

Cathy (48:53)

But I think that if.

Mark (48:59)

probably have lived with was having been a of a meritocratic, small state, free market, Thatcherite type Tory. The idea of Singapore on Thames. But that was never viable in this country. I mean, we’ve got 5 million people who are of working age, who are on out of work benefits. We’ve got 8 million functionally illiterate adults.

Cathy (49:22)

Yes, but that could be fixed

if we had better policies like, for example, a reduction in NI. Yeah.

Mark (49:25)

Yeah, but the idea that we could be like Singapore and really grasp the

opportunity. mean, Singapore is a small island state, quite repressive state in many ways. It’s not really…

Cathy (49:34)

But also it be so nice

to live in a country where it would be much easier to start a business. And it’s become incredibly difficult to start a business. And actually small and mid-sized enterprises are what drives this economy. And making it easy for people like me who run a small business is how we should move forward. It should be bottom-up reform. None of this like, you know…

Mark (49:41)

Yes.

Yeah,

but also the way that the Brexit referendum was sold. mean, you remember those famous buses talking about 350 million more for the NHS or potentially more for the NHS every week. And of course, part of that, course, was they’ve had it.

Cathy (50:10)

Well, actually, how much has the NHS received?

I haven’t delved into it, but I bet you it’s an equivalent figure. I bet you it is.

Mark (50:18)

Yeah, well, think with

the COVID and everything else, I’m sure it has been. But we talked about that.

We talked about taking control of immigration. you know, of course people who voted for it said they wanted lower numbers. Because the argument that we take control and we’ve got our own policy. And of course, Boris Johnson and his crew totally lost control of immigration, which is one of the reasons I’m afraid that the Tories aren’t going to be forgiven for the tale of woe of what happened with Brexit. you know, so part of me, and I don’t want to talk down this country,

Cathy (50:31)

well, that’s, yeah.

Absolutely, yes.

Mark (50:56)

my country, I love it. I’m very glad I ⁓ grew up here, but equally I think we have to recognise our limitations as well. And as I say, I’m no longer in frontline politics.

Cathy (50:57)

No, of course not.

⁓ I completely

recognize our limitations and I I don’t have any sort of faux nostalgia for Empire or any of that rubbish. I just want a political class who will focus on our our issues here at home. And you know, and who will really focus on them because they are, as you say, getting and you know, certainly the pensions issue is so serious. And yet I never see anyone talking about it. I don’t see any coverage on it in the papers. It’s like,

It’s almost like a ticking time bomb that is totally, totally ignored. And as you say, it could lead to riots in the streets. One of these days when people understand the disparity and, the total unfairness between the public and the private sector. is, you know, but just going back to Brexit, it’s really interesting. And I think you’re very fair to everyone in your book, actually. I think your analysis on most of your, you know, the

Mark (51:39)

Yeah, yeah, and it is, it’s…

Cathy (51:59)

political leaders, including Labour, is very fair. But you don’t criticise at any point the EU for its total intransigence and the ratchet screw and the fact that power always seemed to flow one way. And it is seen as not only undemocratic, but actually anti-democratic when it consistently overturns popular feeling and sentiment, which has led to a huge rise in populist governments in

EU and now they’re letting in Bulgaria. Have they forgotten Greece?

Do you see what I mean? It’s like Brexit was the first opportunity the British got to actually put the brakes on and, they took it and it was a very small, but it was decisive. And, and actually, again, to give you credit, you dismissed the call for the people’s vote, which really was anti-democratic because actually we’d been given a chance and how many more times do you need to spin a vote before you, you you accept it?

it.

Mark (53:01)

Yeah, and that

was part of the problem, again, you touched on earlier on with why Labour made a mess of things, that actually Corbyn and Oksana of course, was the shadow Brexit secretary, their room for manoeuvre was also quite limited pretty quickly. what they might have done is try and massively divide the Tory party, know, go along with Theresa May’s deal and the Tory party would have been hopelessly split. But by that stage, there was this big momentum for a second referendum. So there was a view, well, that’s

that’s another prospect. And the trouble…

Cathy (53:31)

Yeah.

I can’t remember the exact details, wasn’t, ⁓ I think Jeremy Corbyn was for Leave and Keir Starmer was for Remain. If you’d really…

Mark (53:43)

I think Corbyn’s heart was

in leave. mean, he formally said remain, but part of the difficulty was he was the leader of the Labour Party and it was evident he was very half-hearted about the whole thing. so, you know, whereas most Labour activists were in favour of remain. I mean, it’s some…

Cathy (53:51)

Yes.

Mark (54:01)

Yeah, whole, I mean, one level, yes, it’s not an ideal situation. And of course, one has to remember, and again, we joined the EC 17 years after, 16 years after it started in 1973. We were always half-hearted. We only really joined partly because of our economy. It was a defensive mechanism. Our economy was doing so badly in early 70s, particularly against Germany and France and Italy. I remember being half-hearted.

Cathy (54:25)

basket case.

Mark (54:31)

I’ve been thinking 30 years ago we’d won a world war against this country.

Cathy (54:36)

Actually, how much did,

that’s a really good point, how much did being half German influence your thinking?

Mark (54:43)

He did, mean, listen, Gisela Stewart on the Labour side was fully German and she was a big leaver. I think for my, there’s an emotional side of, I feel, I mean, was a European, but I’m proud of being half German. I also felt, mean, as far as Brexit was going, we had a fantastic bespoke deal. That’s this tragedy. You we weren’t in the single currency. We had a big rebate. We weren’t in Schengen. had some of the social legislation that we weren’t going to be subject to.

Cathy (54:48)

She was, yeah, that’s true.

Yes.

Yeah, but what?

Mark (55:13)

And I think this was part of the problem, that the European Union, the Commission in particular, felt we’ve gone bent over backwards for the British over many, years. They are half-hearted. it isn’t democracy as we would understand it, but of course one has to remember, again, without sounding as though it’s Britain rules the waves and an empire, we won the Second World War in 1945, we won a war. Most of the rest of Europe had either been under Nazism or

had been overtaken for a period of time and it had therefore had dictatorships and a lot of ongoing political upheaval into the 50s and of course much of Eastern Europe and the countries that joined the EU in 2004 they had spent you know decades under under a communist rule and so they came to it with a totally different sense of where democracy and where accountability lay. Now you know we understood that and you know maybe that was a just

Cathy (56:00)

Yes.

Mark (56:12)

the sovereignty justification, there were people who I knew who surprised me as being leavers, but a lot of it was driven by sovereignty, in a sense, we’ve got to make our own laws, we’ve got to make our own rules, ⁓ which in principle I can understand, the trouble is we’d spent 45 years in that institution, and ⁓ to be fair, we were pretty good at negotiating our position, we got our rebate, we set up the single market.

Cathy (56:40)

Yeah, what a shame we were not so good

at negotiating afterwards. We sort of forgot all those flipping skills.

Mark (56:42)

well and that is true

and and again people often go to blame the you know i think we decided we didn’t want to be members of the club and you know the european commission’s view was right we’ve got to make sure this is the president that we don’t know others to get on the street so you we have to be punished with it

Cathy (56:58)

no, yes, and they are

ferociously good at protecting their own interests. But they ignore the interests of the people that they purport to serve. And I think long-term, that is going to have profound implications for the EU. For example, Bulgaria, ⁓ that’s going to join the Eurozone. And they seem to have forgotten the lessons of Greece, what a disaster that was and how,

And I just fear the same thing is going to happen again. And actually the awful thing about it is that about 60 % of, well, I mean, I don’t know the exact figures, but a large number of Bulgarians do not want this to happen and yet it is going to happen regardless. this is, the EU is baking in so much resentment in the local populations and this is what is leading to populism in Europe.

Mark (57:54)

Well, think the specifics of Bulgaria obviously is, you know, they are very much on the front line. thinking, well, our near neighbor Russia, and therefore the mentality is, we’ve got to all we can to link ourselves into Europe. And therefore, well, we’ve seen, obviously, with presidential elections in Poland only last week, how everything is on very much on a knife edge. But I do some work, and part of the work I do now with a European family office fund means going to Lithuania. And you look at that nation, you know, 2.9 million people.

I mean how the economic situation has been transformed in the 20 years they’ve been in the EU. You they’ve got EU money so that the transport network is fantastic. I mean again all people under the age of 40 in Lithuania now speak very good English. They’re all, they’re much more savvy, much more educated. You know that they’ve got some, I mean not that their business is small and large, haven’t got…

problems that they’re concerned, not least obviously with what’s happening in Ukraine. But there is a sense that they see themselves, and again, with a rising Russia, all those countries, even dare I say Hungary, Viktor Orban in place.

They have a number of concerns, make life difficult for the European Commission, they push back. But there’s no real appetite to leave the European Union. They see it as a binary choice. We’re either linking up with Russia or we’re going to be in the European Union.

Cathy (59:18)

Yeah.

But then on the other hand,

that you’re comparing it to living under communism, which must have been flipping dreadful in any system, has got to be better than that.

Mark (59:29)

Okay. Yeah.

you have to remember is that there are, you know, anyone of my age would have spent their whole childhood under communist, I was in my mid-twenties by 1989. So that’s the mentality, you know, the ruling class in those countries, that they take a different view. then, you know, if you’re living in Poland and you’re seeing more economic growth and greater GDP and everything else, you might think, well,

Cathy (59:44)

Yeah.

Mark (1:00:00)

having some decisions made out in Brussels is slightly dysfunctional, but it’s a downside better than what was made in Moscow, which is was happening between 1945 and 1989.

Cathy (1:00:09)

That is very true. ⁓ what about here? Here’s turning the question on its head. Obviously, because Leave won the vote, even by quite a small margin, Leave is now accountable for what has happened. But imagine if Remain had won.

Do you think that the EU would have seized upon this as a mandate for more more more ratcheting of power? And it is potential that the resentment and the fury and seething population might actually be a much bigger problem than the one we have at the moment where, know, we do have a Kirsten is trying to reset our relationship with the EU, and we do have an opportunity to have a good relationship with them. I, by the way, don’t necessarily

with how he’s going about it. He seems to be giving up all sorts of things and not getting very much in return. But you know, it might have been better the way things have played out rather than the alternative. Do you have any thoughts about that?

Mark (1:01:09)

Yeah, well, I do have,

I was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party at the time between 2015 and 2017. So during the year that led to Brexit and then the period immediately afterwards when everyone wondered what the hell was going on and how are we going to sort this all out. And I, you know, I’ll be honest, I did reflect on…

I’ll be honest again, my assumption was we were going to revoke Remain and I thought it would be 55-45, something along the lines of the Scottish referendum of two years before. And I did.

start chatting with people both in Europe and in Tory colleagues saying, well, listen, does this not mean if we do vote remain that we’re going to be moving towards thinking about a single currency, thinking about, as you say, moving in a direction that potentially means we get more integrated? We’ve made up our mind, and this is the last time we’re going to look at this for 30 or so years. Now, there may well have been all sorts of concerns. If we had moved in that direction, I agree.

Cathy (1:02:11)

Don’t you think that’s the,

that would be the subject of a brilliant alternative history? Maybe we can hand the idea to, you know, Robert Harris or someone like that. I don’t know if you’ve read Fatherland.

Mark (1:02:24)

Maybe I’d have become Prime Minister in

2021, leading the charge towards it all as we we linked up with a whole group of other people. What would have happened to Nigel Farage? mean, mean, going back to the thing about where reform is, it is incredible situation. That guy has been, you know, when you think about as an influence, the influence that essentially led to the referendum.

Cathy (1:02:51)

no, absolutely, he’s a ⁓ one man dynamo. But that’s the problem, he’s a one man dynamo and he doesn’t seem to be able to lead a team. you do need a certain amount of unity to run a part of it, I don’t need to tell you.

Mark (1:02:51)

and how he’s transformed things.

True, true, mind you the

same was said between about 1922 and about 1939 about Winston Churchill and…

Cathy (1:03:11)

really? ⁓

Mark (1:03:12)

Well,

Cathy (1:03:13)

yeah.

Mark (1:03:13)

it’s interesting. Circumstances make for interesting ⁓ sets of politics. I think the concern that we have is that the irony is the moment we’ve left the EU, we’re having a political system that is now much more similar to the Europe. It looks like we’re going to get four or five parties all with substantial blocks of votes. We may be in a situation at the next election where no party gets 30 % of the vote. And I think a question, Mark, then,

is our voting system fit for purpose? Are too many people that, you know, and so I think that’s all quite a live debate in the constitutional issues that impact on the country in the years to come. And when I say the country, the other thing, of course, I touch on in my first chapter of my book, something that was close to my heart as I was growing up, the constitutional situation, the issue about Northern Ireland and Scotland, ⁓ again, both in the aftermath of Brexit, I think the question mark is to whether

Cathy (1:03:47)

Wow, that’s a good question.

Mark (1:04:12)

the United Kingdom as we have understood it. got to remember, we think of it as Britain walls away has been here forever. Well, we weren’t united with Scotland before 1707. weren’t united, Northern Ireland has only existed since 1921 with the splitting up there. So these things have not been set in stone historically as we would have us believe. But who knows, we could be in a situation that by 2050, 2060, we have a, there is a United Kingdom of England and Wales, but

Scotland and Northern Ireland have gone their own way on Northern Ireland, United Island.

Cathy (1:04:47)

Well,

thing is, if the Scots really want to go their own way, they should be able to do it. But if they took a hard-headed look at their own situation, I believe, and again, I’m sorry, I haven’t done any research on this, but of a population of about five million, only a quarter of a million of them are net taxpayers.

and you know without the Barnett formula it’s going to be really difficult for them to go it alone and I don’t I don’t say it’s impossible it would be possible but they would have to lurch significantly to the right and that is just not the Scottish way I think the Scots are canny enough to recognize that but you know

Mark (1:05:30)

They’ll keep playing

the grievance against it and make sure the Barnett formula goes from strength to strength. You may be right. The only thing I would say is, dare I say it, the experience.

Cathy (1:05:39)

But there’s

no real appetite for disbanding the Barnett formula, is there? I mean, obviously…

Mark (1:05:45)

No, mean,

again, once it’s been set in stone, I mean, well, not yet. mean, again, you know, the red wall seats in the north of England, you which the key very volatile seats that were Labour for decades until 2019 and Boris Johnson won them on the Brexit election.

back in the labour category today, but may well become reform seats in 28, 29. They are the sort of areas, if you’re in Newcastle or whatever, where they look a few miles further north into Scotland. well, actually, all the money that they’re getting compared to what we’re not getting for transport and other infrastructure. So I think that that’s where lot of the tensions will come in. And of course, these are the key seats that any party aspiring to government in Westminster needs to be aware of.

Cathy (1:06:23)

must be infuriating.

Mark (1:06:34)

A lot of that grievance could start up again. And the only thing I would say about, if you’re right, I mean, it doesn’t make economic sense for Scotland to leave, but it didn’t make economic sense for us to leave the European Union either.

Cathy (1:06:46)

Well, I don’t know about

that. It’s not the disaster that it could, I mean, there a lot of things like FinTech, like life sciences, like, and you’re quite right that it has come at a real cost. But on the other hand, ⁓ it is, you know, it’s maybe a chance for Britain to reflect on its own role. And even though Brexit was really messy, it was painful, and it’s caused an awful lot of division. You know, maybe it is, ⁓ you know, for example, I am,

I’m very glad not to be in the EU now that they’re letting in Bulgaria. It’s like, and I, by the way, I’ve got a very good Bulgarian friend and I’ve been there on holiday skiing a couple of times. I love the country. I love Bulgaria. I just think, you know, the EU is constantly thinking about the political project and it doesn’t really care about the, people that actually have to live through their decisions. ⁓ And, know, it’s.

Mark (1:07:42)

Yeah, there’s certainly

a sense that the European Commission is constantly in this frenetic activity and that means it’s like a conglomerate. We’ve got to get bigger. We’ve got to get more members, whether that’s a single currency. Bulgaria, of course, has been in the EU since 2008 along with Romania, but there is all the talk of Montenegro and Serbia and other countries joining at some point and there’s a sense that needs to constantly get bigger.

Cathy (1:07:55)

Yes.

Sorry, I should

have been clear joining the Eurozone rather than, yeah.

Mark (1:08:12)

Well, euro rather than the EU, yes.

But it’s, yeah, it’s…

I don’t think there’s going to be any appetite to rejoin. Not least for two reasons. One, from our perspective, we would go in on far worse terms when we left. Clearly, we would have, I think, if we were ever going to rejoin, we would have to be making clear there was a path joining the single currency and we what that path was. We wouldn’t be getting a rebate. So we’d be financially a lot worse off. We wouldn’t be getting all the benefits of Schengen. We would have to go in on the full package. And the other thing is, why would the EU want to

want us back in. I no, no, not at the moment. I think the Commission would say, listen, until you get your house in order, from their perspective, until the entire political class comes back and says, cap in hand, we want to come back in, we’re no winner.

Cathy (1:08:52)

they’d love to have us back. Come on. Of course they’d want us back.

They’ll take Bulgaria, they’ll take Greece, they’ll

take any economic basket case. Don’t say they won’t take us back. They would love to take us back because it would be such a, it would be a feather in the cap of Ursula von der Leyen that, you know, and they’d be singing Beethoven for…

Mark (1:09:25)

Well, we won’t go

back in unless there’s another referendum. I do think, I mean, much as people may not think that Brexit has been handled very well, do you really think that at a referendum tomorrow we would vote to go back in?

Cathy (1:09:38)

That’s a very good question. I don’t know is the answer. but ⁓ for all the reasons that you articulated, because we’d have to go back in on a much worse deal, I think, you know, so.

Mark (1:09:48)

Yeah, and I think that would make it a

difficult sell for any government.

Cathy (1:09:55)

But

don’t you think that there’s a real worry that Keir Starmer is getting us back in through the back door? You don’t think so? ⁓ that’s okay.

Mark (1:10:03)

I really don’t think so. sorry. Listen,

if I were in Kemmy Badenoch’s shoes, of course that’s probably what I would have to say that it’s all a betrayal. Yeah, but I don’t think… Listen, I think what he’s trying to… There’s always the quid pro quo. Fishing is a tiny industry. Listen, I’m not the MP for Grimsby and I’m sure if I were, I’d be taking a different view on it. It is a tiny industry. And therefore…

Cathy (1:10:12)

Yeah, but that’s politicking. I’m really not interested in the posturing or the politicking.

Mark (1:10:32)

looking at fishing rights, not least because they’re so difficult to police, we’re willing to give a little bit. I think that to try and do something for youngsters, because I think that is one of the worst things. We took for granted, could go travelling, go interrailing or whatever into Europe, doing something to make life easier for people under the age of 30 to travel within Europe.

Cathy (1:10:56)

no, I’m all for that. Yeah.

Mark (1:10:56)

for Europeans to come to the UK. think that makes perfect sense.

so having something.

Cathy (1:11:01)

And actually,

though the EU will, as a whole, will obviously benefit far more than we will because, there so many young people in Europe who don’t have jobs and could actually earn more money here. But I think it’s really important to have, young people working, as you say, and, you know, obviously the opportunity for our lot to go to Europe, even though vanishingly few of them take the opportunity to work in Europe because of language difficulties and other things.

But hopefully that will change. I mean, if we can actually improve language capability.

Mark (1:11:36)

Well, everyone’s speaking English now, so that’s going to

take care of itself quite quickly, I think, to be honest.

Cathy (1:11:40)

Yeah,

maybe, but yeah.

Mark (1:11:42)

But the

other thing, looking at these things like E-gates, although very funny, a couple of years ago we were just before Christmas, we went out to the Canary Islands and we arrived and there was this massive queue, there no queues at all, were no flights from Germany or anywhere else in Europe. And there’s this massive queue at the non-EU gates. it’s fantastic, the pragmatism of the Spanish, oh come on you Brits, just come on through our E-gates. That was great, yeah.

Cathy (1:12:09)

Well, yes, exactly. ⁓

Exactly. There is, you know, and there’s an easing of that as well. It used to be really bad, like, and there was an element of punishment as well. And sometimes, it was almost like, right, you voted for Brexit, you sit in that queue.

Mark (1:12:25)

We can’t

blame them. We don’t want to be part of the club. There are club rules here. You put your fingers out to the club so you’re not going to make it difficult for you.

Cathy (1:12:31)

But you know, and I’m I’m delighted that, you know, absolutely.

But I am really glad that we did not follow suit. I’m very glad that when, EU people come to Heathrow, they go in the same way they always have done, because I don’t ever think that childish retaliation is a good idea. I have to say that in case one day my daughter listens to this. So that’s very true. Yeah.

Mark (1:12:55)

aren’t coming in the boats either they don’t need to do that they can come through the much more direct route.

Cathy (1:13:01)

But okay, so moving forwards on more positive things, or if there are any more positive things, we are where we are, And in fact, we can’t change the position we’re in now. But what do you think we should do moving forward as a country?

Mark (1:13:20)

Well I think ⁓ part of the issues that the political class has not been straight with the country about how serious the situation is. There’s been the sense we can tinker here, tinker there, and as you say, whether it’s to do with major issues like pensions. mean growth and productivity are, we know they’re key, but unfortunately too few people in leading government roles have actually had much business experience to understand. And as you say, one of their biggest own goals was the…

Well employers, National Insurance goes up. Well what better way to clobber the SME sector, which as you say is so crucial to that economic growth. So I think we need to think through some policies that are both, know, that are going to get growth going, but also, know, once we’ve got that going to think, so there’s some short term policy stuff, and then how do we keep this engine moving along and, you know.

Cathy (1:13:50)

off.

Mark (1:14:16)

elements of are, I see it obviously in the financial services market, elements of deregulation, mean, unraveling some of what we’ve put into place in recent times, but not to such an extent to allow such risky behaviour to take place as it did in the past. But we need to start…

Cathy (1:14:33)

Yes, actually,

that’s a very I’m glad you brought that up. You mentioned several times in your book about the mispricing of risk, what you mean is the the failure to understand the actual political or financial risks in a model or a system, which I don’t know if you’ve Yes.

Mark (1:14:49)

Yeah, and very low interest rates have also done that.

People have taken on unsustainable amounts of debt, which, well, they are sustainable for period of time because with very low interest rates there’s little incentive for banks or others to pull the plug on failing businesses. And that actually is also very anti-growth because you’ve got the nether regions of business are clogged up with unviable businesses rather than growing and successful businesses.

Cathy (1:15:17)

Exactly.

And also when there’s a big financial shock, the government steps in to insulate or cushion the blow or do quantitative easing or, you know, they take other measures,

rather than allow the system to absorb the shock and improve as a result of it. Even though that might be very short term, it might involve a lot of short term pain. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read any books by Nassim Taleb. He wrote this amazing book, The Black Swan, about…

Mark (1:15:46)

and I did realize that.

Cathy (1:15:48)

⁓ you know how we think Black Swan events are actually really rare but they happen way more frequently than and so Black Swan event being a huge shock which is unforeseen and then being natural storytellers we then create a narrative after the fact about why it happened you know and actually there are so many Black Swan events in fact I wrote a list of them down there’s you know starting from

Tony Blair’s day the Asian financial crisis then the Russian debt default and the LTCM crisis the dot-com bubble and then we had 9-eleven which obviously was a huge not only financial shock but a massive attack at the very heart of Western democracy itself the Enron scandal I could go on and on and on leading up to

Mark (1:16:22)

Yeah, unbelievable,

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Taryn De Meillon (1:16:39)

a quick interjection here. A Black Swan event, as defined by Nassim Taleb, is one that is unpredictable, that has an extreme impact, and that is rationalized after the fact as if it were predictable, so that we think that we’ve learnt lessons from these events and we think we’re prepared for the next time they occur. So, after the Enron crisis…

We had March 2003, the Iraq war and multiple intelligence failures, followed by 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami killing 230,000 people with no warning system. September 2008 was the global financial crisis. Lehman Brothers collapse triggers a global recession. Then we had the Greek sovereign debt default, which was related to that.

which sent shockwaves through the eurozone. May 2010 was a flash crash. The US stock market plunged another 9%. December 2010, the Arab Spring, which resulted in uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

2011 was the Fukushima nuclear disaster sparked off by a tsunami. Then UK riots in 2011, widespread civil unrest following the shooting of Mark Duggan. 2015, the European migrant crisis

kicked off by the war in Syria. 2016, the Brexit referendum result, followed by, the election of Donald Trump. 2018, the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal.

which had massive implications for democracy. 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic bringing global economies to a halt and resulting in the deaths of millions.

2021, the US capital riots, by Trump supporters. also, the blockage of the Suez Canal resulting in a global supply chain crisis.

February 2022, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,

2022 also saw the explosion of generative AI. March 2023 saw the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.

October 2023 saw the Hamas attacks on Israel, the taking of hundreds of hostages leading to massive regional conflict. 2024 saw an escalation of this conflict. expanded by the involvement of Hezbollah and rising tensions with Iran.

Also in 2024, the Red Sea shipping crisis by Huthy led attacks on commercial vehicles, Then regional bank instability in the US in 2024. And there are constant Black Swan events,

And we always think that we’ve learned lessons from these things, but then the next time they happen, yet again we’re completely unprepared.

Cathy (1:19:41)

Obviously COVID being a really good example where the global supply chains just completely failed

doesn’t it make the case for, certainly in the UK, for decentralization and allowing for experimentation in different regions so that as a whole we’re actually much stronger and able to survive these things?

Mark (1:20:02)

Well, dare I say this, that’s a whole new argument because we have become a very centralised state.

goes towards Westminster. In fairness, political parties have tried to experiment with mayors and we have metro mayors, but the reality is until those metro mayors have significant tax raising powers and authorities, ultimately they’re still dependent upon streams of money coming through from the centre and that’s the problem. And also, ⁓ they want to grandstand away, due to varying degree,

Cathy (1:20:30)

Yes.

Mark (1:20:40)

always eager to point fingers at a

Cathy (1:20:41)

Are you thinking of anyone

in particular? ⁓

Mark (1:20:45)

Someone close to my heart, the mayor, the bloody mayor of London here in London.

it’s funny, I’m always amazed, it’s a funny thing in politics, I’m amazed by the vitriol that some people have towards Sadiq Khan, who I knew quite well because we were MPs together, he was an MP of course, he’s very nice guy, very softly spoken, very reasonable guy personally, but the vitriol I’ve been laughing at the guy. Yeah.

Cathy (1:21:03)

Oh, I’m sure he’s delightful and I’m sure he’s really… I’m sure… I would love to sit next to him at dinner, but I hate what he’s done to, you know,

to the parking, to the… I don’t know. I really… Oh, yes.

Mark (1:21:16)

with these 20 mile an hour and these bloody cycle lanes,

it’s insane, I mean is literally, it is slower today to get around central London in a car than is by a horse and cart in the 1890s because you know, you’ve got these constant, these traffic lights and you dare go above 20 miles an hour and the cameras are flashing away morning, noon and night, I mean it’s insane.

Cathy (1:21:27)

he’s brought the city to a standstill.

Yeah,

yeah, maybe I’m a bit burnt because I recently had to pay a massive fine because I forgot to pay the ula’s on my old RAV4 which has now gone to the great Naka’s yard in the sky but I forgot to pay it and I had a huge fine as a result of it so mea culpa.

Mark (1:21:57)

No, I’m sorry, because

we don’t really need a car in London. ⁓

in central London, there’s pretty good transports, but we’ve got a 21 year old Toyota Prius, which everyone assumes must be our second car, it’s knock around, so we don’t disabuse them about the fact that it’s actually our only car, it’s alive and kicking, but obviously it gets all the, it ticks all the boxes for me, because we actually live within the centralized zone, but also the Ulez, it’s a very good hybrid car and all that sort of stuff, but I’m afraid I’ve never had any great interest in

because whenever men start talking about high performance cars I’m afraid this thing goes straight over my head.

Cathy (1:22:38)

Well, you switch off. Yeah,

I’ve got to say, it gets me from A to B. I’ve now got a little Ford Fiesta and that’s like, you so and it’s only 20 quid a year to tax and it’s ULA’s compliance.

Mark (1:22:42)

Good for you!

Perfect.

Cathy (1:22:56)

So I’m very conscious, I’ve kept you on the podcast for a really long time.

Mark (1:22:58)

No, I’m very glad. There’s

going be lots of editing going on. Gosh, think we’re about an hour and a half into this. It’s perfect.

Cathy (1:23:05)

An

hour and a half, yes exactly. Productivity, we’ve now got a real mental health crisis going on and one of the things that I would, if you have a mental health issue, then one of the best ways of overcoming it is to go to work, to have social contact, to have routine, and yet…

successive governments have made it easier and easier for people with mental health issues to stay at home. And it might seem very comforting to stay at home if you have a mental health issue. And actually, you mentioned that your father was quite depressed. You said he basically lived for a long time under a cloud of cigarette smoke and depression, which is

you know, sad image But I just wonder, having that experience, what can we do to get people back to work?

Mark (1:23:55)

It is difficult and funny having a portfolio existence, I work for a home, I have that.

do go to board meetings and everything else. And I’ve been, have, my wife says to me, you know, you’re always so much more cheerful when you’ve been out and about and had meetings and you you go out and see friends and, and have a sort of social world. Of course, when I was in parliament, know, in a way it was kind of full on the gray area between personal life and political life, you know, men going out most evenings and, you know, would be a lot of socializing. And that did come to a bit of a jolt, mean, partly coincided with COVID. came to a jolt.

Cathy (1:24:28)

Yeah.

Mark (1:24:33)

⁓ and I agree I mean I think that getting back to work and particularly for young people I mean listen I’m not in any way belittling the mental health issues I was very glad to we were very lucky our children were quite a bit younger when when Covid hit but for people who were in their mid to late teens and those teenage years plus you know the early university years that were sort of wiped out essentially for during the whole Covid period must have had a massive impact on a lot a lot of people and as you say it does

Cathy (1:24:55)

Oh, it was ghastly and come.

Mark (1:24:59)

really do them any favours to be in a job where they say well you can work from home three or four days a week. Actually they need to be in the office. You learn more by by osmosis about being in the office with with others but also it is a social life and it’s a let’s have a quick you know grab a sandwich at lunchtime and have a quick drink after work.

Cathy (1:25:09)

Yes.

it gives you an opportunity to observe

how things are done, you know, even if you don’t, ⁓ you know, when you’re in an office, you can actually watch people and observe an awful lot. And you do absorb a huge amount

Mark (1:25:24)

Yeah.

yeah, it isn’t healthy. And I think we’ve got into this mindset, you know, and again, the cost of commuting is heavy. people, know, there is some people find it attractive, the idea, well, I can work from home two or three days a week or whatever. But I’m not sure that it isn’t having a major impact on mental health. think particularly young people in their 20s, you know, and I can see that, you know, they have to weigh up the cost of

five days a week going into the office. the downside is that they’re not getting neither the experience or the interaction that, as you say, is an integral part of living, really. You don’t live to work, but actually work is an important part of your existence.

Cathy (1:26:11)

And there’s so much loneliness amongst young people now. I think social media has made it much worse because you have the illusion of interaction when you’re not actually having face-to-face. We’re very social creatures and when we’re face-to-face, we’re swapping hormones and whereas we don’t even realize it. Kids seem to live a very atomized existence and loneliness is also really endemic amongst old people as well.

really got to try and these are the things we should be fixing, know, rather than worrying about our global standing in the world.

Mark (1:26:42)

Yeah, these are big, big issues. touch

on them in the book, it’s slightly evocative. People have read it about what life was like growing up in the 1970s. I’ve it partly for my children’s sake, because it’s a very different world that we were living in. But one of the things I reflect on is how boring Sundays were. I came from a middle-class background where it was a special day. Although my parents weren’t particularly religious at all. We didn’t go to church or anything, but it was a special day.

Cathy (1:27:03)

I remember that, yes.

Mark (1:27:12)

My brother and I were told we can’t go out to see friends and you just the shops weren’t open. There was no sport on TV You know, obviously didn’t have all the social social media. I mean, you know youngsters have got can’t get bored these days They’ve got so many we know the opposite the opposite problem is there that you you’ve got this sort of a miniscule attention Detention to detail and you know, you’re constantly on on some device or another

Cathy (1:27:21)

Bored out of your gourd. Yeah.

Mark (1:27:42)

to the problems that you’ve alluded to, is, know, the assumption is everyone else is having a fantastic time when they’re not necessarily, and the loneliness that comes with just looking at life through a screen. But it’s a totally different world, the one that we grew up in, really is, and it probably means, there I say, our generation are perhaps less aware of just how serious those issues of atomization are for youngsters growing up.

Cathy (1:28:09)

Yeah,

exactly. I mean, there are so many other things we could discuss, I, yes, I know it’s been an hour and 35. I think that’s probably enough.

Mark (1:28:16)

we’ll do another one these then if it doesn’t work.

I think with hundred, with 95 minutes worth of stuff, that presumably was going to get cut a little bit in any event. yeah. Well, thank you so much for that. And thank you for reading the book. I think you know better than I do, heaven’s sakes.

Cathy (1:28:28)

Well, we might have to cut a little bit. exactly. ⁓

No, I, we can’t promise a huge following on the indie book club yet, but we can promise that we will read your book very, very carefully.

Mark (1:28:46)

I enjoyed writing it and I think it hopefully tells also the story of self-deprecating but realistic a way about some of the challenges you’re under in politics as well as well as you know my life and times.

Cathy (1:28:53)

No, was really…

I

think you got the balance between the memoir bit without being too personal and also the politics. I do think you were very fair to everyone except the EU. I think you gave them a bit of a free ride. But generally speaking, I think I can forgive you for that on the whole. It was a very entertaining book and also it was really interesting reading it. Half the things you alluded

I was like, yeah, I remember that. And otherwise you would forget about it. You know, just, because events just keep unfolding.

Mark (1:29:28)

No, well, that’s the other thing, of course, when you’re in the eye of

the storm, you seem to everyone remember forevermore that you were involved in whatever it might have been. As I say, I kind of know what the first line in my picture is going to be, and I that’s for events of 20 or so years ago. You haven’t been touched on that, I’m very pleased to see.

Cathy (1:29:39)

Yeah, but did you

Yeah, well, yes, that’s well thing is I didn’t want to ask you about that.

Taryn De Meillon (1:29:53)

quick interjection here. When Mark says he knows what the first line of his obituary will read he’s referring to his very well publicized affair with Liz Truss sometime around 2004 but it didn’t come to light until after the affair was over when Liz Truss put herself forward for the Chislehurst and Bromley by-election following the death of Eric Forth.

and someone tipped off the Daily Mail to scupper her chances of winning. That’s politics for you.

Cathy (1:30:25)

But the only thing I did want to ask about that is I’m guessing that that whole Westminster atmosphere, the febrile, politicking and the cloak and dagger stuff, it must really lend itself to close relationships forming.

Mark (1:30:46)

Yeah, I’ve

reflected on this as well, and you know, obviously being out of it now, you know, what surprised me is given how indiscreet Weena Curry was, that she kept quiet about it for all those years. That was the most amazing thing about it all. No, no, I think that…

Cathy (1:30:51)

I mean even John Major was, you know, I who, even John Major, you know.

Mark (1:31:06)

What one has to remember is that most people go into politics. When you think about it, you throw yourself at the mercy of the voters every four years. You’re by nature risk takers. And of course, the thing about politics as well, you spend your time having a lot of superficial relationship, meeting lots and lots of people. And by nature, most people in politics are fairly outward going, et cetera, et cetera. You’re ticking most of the boxes for the people who are likely to stray in whatever way that they may.

Cathy (1:31:15)

Yes.

Yes, and also,

if you’re even outside of politics, if you’re going to stray, it’s more likely to be with someone from work, because you have a common purpose, you have like, you’re often working on, you know, two deadlines, and it’s very exciting. do you know what I mean? It’s so it really makes an awful lot of sense to me. But just for the record, you brought that up, I did not. So

Mark (1:31:42)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I don’t know.

from minute one to be like, well, tell me a more about Elizabeth Truss, you know, God, here we go again.

Cathy (1:32:10)

This is not mum’s net.

Mark (1:32:15)

Well listen, really look forward to seeing you in a few weeks time and thank you so much, it’s been great, really enjoyed it.

Cathy (1:32:16)

Anyway.

Yeah,

it has been really great. I’m sure we’ve forgotten to talk about something majorly important, but we can always cover that.

Mark (1:32:26)

Well, if you needed to do

something else that we could do it, I’ll make sure I put the right shirt back on and we can do it all again.

Cathy (1:32:32)

I’m sure

we’ll be fine, but thank you so much. ⁓ yeah, I will ⁓ chat to you soon. Actually, I’m looking forward to reading you other books as well. I haven’t done that, but.

Mark (1:32:35)

Super.

They were very good,

There were more collections of essays, more economics and geopolitics, but actually they’re quite good timepieces of that particular period in the last decade.

Cathy (1:32:55)

Well,

it is an area I’m really interested in, especially the intersection between politics and finance, because I worked in the city for 20 years.

Mark (1:33:01)

Yes you did, yes. I’m really looking forward to catching up and talking about

that when we meet up. Have a great rest of the weekend. Thank you so much. Bye bye.

Cathy (1:33:06)

Great. Okay, brilliant. Okay, thank you.

Cheers.